


Greg is a Chaos Fairy, Wirt needs to learn to Say No, and Sara's day just got Cursed With Being Interesting

by peterqpan



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-08-24 14:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16642409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterqpan/pseuds/peterqpan
Summary: “Look!”  Greg ran down the road.  “The horse tracks go in this direction.”“Horse tracks,” Sara repeated.“An evil horse kidnapped Wirt,” Greg informed her.“Why do you think that?” she let her eyes narrow.  “Is that something that happens, here?”“Yes.”“...you’ve met horse kidnappers,” she repeated, just to be sure.“Probably.  They’re--”“Probably. ”“Probably that way,” Greg pointed impatiently.Greg drags Sara into an adventure with Wirt and some of the usual mischief.





	1. Where's Wirt?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crumpetslut](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Crumpetslut).



Sara opened her mouth to ask Wirt _something,_ she wasn’t sure what, because as soon as she looked up her eyes met the eyes of Greg’s frog.  “What,” she whispered, glancing from the back of his head, where the frog was perched, to the teacher, who was still sorting through her bag, not having noticed the invading agent of chaos.

“Sssh,” Greg squirmed on the seat, kicking his legs, then sat still with a sigh of satisfaction.  “I have to do roll call for Wirt.”

“Why?” she whispered back.  “Is he okay--”

Greg beckoned her down to the floor, whispering under their desks.  “He’s digging a grave.”

“He’s _what?”_

“We were walking along, and we found a body, and it looked just like our friend Beatrice.”  Unsatisfied with the level of secrecy, he’d made parentheses for his face out of his hands, so his stage whisper was magnified from about four inches away.    

Sara made a frog-like noise.  “Did you call 911?!  Oh,” her eyes narrowed.  “Wait, was it a bird?”

“I told him I’d come get a recorder to play a funeral song, but then the bell rang.”

“Uhh,” Sara reviewed the words in her head.  

“My frog will sing,” Greg nodded.  “You should come, you can throw flowers.  It will be a good funeral.”

Greg’s frog decided that moment to let its chin swell to nearly its own size again, in anticipation of a truly ground-shaking croak, and before Sara could question herself, she was grabbing her bag, grabbing the frog, and dragging Greg out of the classroom.  The frog, startled, let out a ribbit so loud the classrooms they passed fell silent, and she grabbed for Greg’s sleeve to pull him faster.

“I didn’t say Wirt’s name for roll call!” he scrabbled at lockers, his shoes squeaking loudly as he fought.  “We’re passing the music room! I need a recorder!”

“We can't--oh, _fine--”_ she squinted through the darkened glass of the door, then drug him inside, just as voices started to echo in the hall behind them.

“Wirt had perfect attendance,” Greg informed her, strict hands on hips, as she listened for footsteps at the door.  “Oh well. You have to play too, then. My frog will sing.”

“I only play the piano,” she hissed back.  

“I will grab a triangle for you,” Greg hrmmmed over the selection, finally selecting a pale, cream-coloured recorder.  “Oh, I can’t find a triangle.”

“Shh,” she tried again, looking over to see him unlatching one of the low windows.  “What--no, Greg--”

There was a thumping crash outside, as his frog stared at her from the horizontal surface of the window.  Greg’s face reappeared. “Come on, Jehosaphat,” he tugged at the frog. Someone knocked at the door to the music room, and Sara’s heart jolted.  She was clambering through the window, limbs flailing like a turtle, before she knew what she was about, only to find herself drug off through the bushes by the front of her NASA jacket.

“Let me _go,_ Greg,” she whispered crossly.  “I need to stand up, I can’t walk this fast--”

They slid into a ditch, she thought at first, but as she yelled it just kept _going,_ a long sandy incline of dead leaves, until she ran out of breath shortly before hitting the bottom, and Greg hopped up onto an adjacent path, unfazed.  Sara, of course, had an old bottle shoving against the side of her butt.

“What was--where?!” she scrambled up to catch up to him, rubbing the developing bruise.

“Shortcut!” Greg shook both fists in the air triumphantly.

“The _leaves_ are falling _\--it’s summer,”_ she frowned up at the naked trees, before closing her eyes, squeezing the bridge of her nose, and taking a few slow breaths.  

“Come on,” Greg drug her onwards, letting her arm go when she stumbled.  When they came on the grave, it was human-sized, but the notebook-paper wrapped bundle in the bottom was smaller than her fist.  The surrounding ground was covered in horseshoe prints, of all things.

“Okay,” said Greg, and whipped out the recorder.  

“And where’s Wirt?” she circled the grave.  There were only a few prints that looked like sneakers, no shovel, and no Wirt.

“We’re going to start now,” Greg nodded at the frog.  It began to sing. Sara felt her eyes widen, but set her jaw, and raised the glass bottle she’d found to her lips to blow in time to Greg’s recorder.  She did additional percussion with her nails on the side. This is what it sang:

 

Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound!

My ears attend the cry:--

Ye living all! come view the ground

Where you must shortly lie.

 

Princes! this clay must be your bed,

In spite of all your towers;

The tall, the wise, the reverend head

Must lie as low as ours.

 

Great God! is this our certain doom?

And are we still secure?

Still walking downward to our tomb,

And yet prepare no more!

 

Grant us the powers of quickening grace

To fit our souls to fly;

Then, when we drop this dying flesh,

We'll rise above the sky.

 

Once they’d finished, they lowered their heads.  

“It was a good funeral,” Greg nodded.  

Sara gave a wary glance at the frog, looked around again for Wirt, swallowing, then pushed most of the loose dirt back in the grave with her shoe.  Greg stumbled back out of some bushes with a hubcap. He was brushing the leaves off. He handed it to Sara, who looked from it, to him, to the grave, then began shoving it in at the head of the grave with her foot.  Greg vanished again--predictably, at this point--and reappeared again with a rock. He placed it carefully at the other end.

“That’s for her feet,” he told Sara, then, “Where has Wirt got to,” he put his hands on his hips again.

“I didn’t know your frog could sing,” Sara said, feeling oddly out of breath.  She wondered whether she should sit, and wait for Wirt.

“All frogs can _sing,”_ Greg rolled his eyes, and she shrugged.

“I’ve never even skipped school before.”

“Your _attendance_ doesn’t matter,” Greg said loftily.  “They’ve got _Wirt.”_

She blinked at him.  “What? Who?”

“Well,” he took a deep, impressive breath. _“Someone._ He’s not _here_.”

“That doesn’t mean--”

“Look!”  Greg ran down the road.  “The horse tracks go in _this direction.”_

“Horse tracks,” Sara repeated.  

“An evil horse kidnapped Wirt,” Greg informed her.

“Why do you think that?” she let her eyes narrow.  “Is that something that happens, here?”

“Yes.”

“...you’ve met _horse kidnappers,”_ she repeated, just to be sure.

“Probably.  They’re--”

“ _Probably._ ”

“Probably that way,” Greg pointed impatiently.  

Sara scrabbled at her hair, groaning, then braced herself, shoulders back.  “Well. He’s not _here_ , there aren’t any footprints, and the only prints _are_ from the horse.  We won’t catch a horse, but we can see where it’s going.”

“I hope it kidnapped Wirt,” Greg jumped over to his frog, grabbing it around the middle.  

“Hello,” a small voice said, near Sara’s ear, and she spun to frown around.  “Ahem. Here, in the shadbush.”

“You’re a--hello,” Sara tried, feeling like a Disney princess, which led to a bizarre inclination to curtsey.

“I am a _regulus calendula_.  A ruby-crowned kinglet,” the bird said crisply, and Sara was half relieved she hadn’t blurted “bird”, and half annoyed.

“I wasn’t wondering.  Did you need something?”

“You don’t have a crown,” Greg pointed out.

The bird ruffled up to three times its previous tiny size, fluttering indignantly.  

“I mean,” Sara sighed.  “If it’s part of your introduction, of course I’ll remember, it’s just our friend--”

“Wirt’s been kidnapped,” Greg put in, with relish.

“--is _missing_ , so I wasn’t really thinking about what kind of bird you were.”

“Hrmpf,” the bird turned away from them, flicking its tail.

“...we’ll be going, then,” Sara smiled stiffly, turning to follow the hoofprints.

“G’bye, Mr Ruby-Crowned Kinglet,” Greg called cheerfully.  

“That doesn’t even make sense,” the bird fluttered to follow them.  “You wouldn’t say Mr _Human_.  And my name is Phoebe.”

“Hullo, Mrs Phoebe!” Greg waved his frog, and Sara groaned.  

“Hello, Phoebe, I’m Sara,” she said, shrugging as she walked.  “Did you happen to see what happened here?  I’m sorry I was rude.”

“Hrm,” said Phoebe, zipping ahead, and then returning to land on Sara’s head.  Her weight was barely noticeable. “Your friend seems nice. Bit of a whiner.”

“He _is_ , isn’t he,” Greg sighed, shaking his head.

“Wirt’s all right,” Sara grimaced.  “Did you see what happened? Did he just leave?”

“Hrm,” Phoebe flitted over to sit on Greg’s head.  He went exaggeratedly crosseyed.

 _“Okay,_ we’re following the _horse_ , then,” Sara strode ahead.

“He’s been _kidnapped_ by an _evil horse,”_ Greg explained again.

“What fun,” Phoebe chirped.  “I’ll just tag along.”

 

Far along the road, Wirt raised his voice over the pounding hooves.  “...and you’re _sure_ I’ll be back in time?”

“Oh, sure,” the horse whinnied.  “Remember, I know your friend.  Frank.”

“Fred,” Wirt said automatically, clutching at the silvery bridle, and the mane that sometimes faded through his fingers like smoke.

“Fred,” the horse agreed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Isaac Watts, A Funeral Thought, first published 1707


	2. Sara would have packed better, had she known...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now she's down this weird rabbit hole, Sara is pretty determined to find the White Rabbit. (Wirt will not be flattered by this comparison.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I didn't mark this as chaptered, no wonder people were like "There should be more!" There will probably be...five chapters? I'm not sure yet.

The road stretched on, before and behind, with no turnoffs.  Eventually, it joined a river, chattering along beside them. It mixed well with Phoebe’s frequent bursts of song.  

Sara’s feet hurt, the ballet flats she’d donned after gym doing her no favours on the unpaved road.  At least she had her bag, she reflected--if she needed to sell an automatic pencil as a miracle tool, she was set.  She also had her binder, highlighters, sticky notes, a red colored pencil, and the second half of a granola bar she’d been trying to eat when she got called to the board to figure out the volume of a cylinder.

“I am not prepared for this at _all,”_ she said aloud, with mental apologies to Wirt.

“Oh, that’s very interesting,” Greg nodded.  “Help me think of some words that start with ‘f’.  I’m composing a tongue twister about my frog.”

Sara bit her lips on a grin.  “‘Fabulous’?”

“‘Figgery’,” suggested Phoebe.  “It’s like decorations. ‘Kinglets have no frivolous figgery.’”

“Oh, that’s good.  Neither does my frog.”  He considered. “I like ‘frolic’.”

“‘Fierce’?  ‘Fearsome’?” Phoebe flitted over to inspect the frog, cocking her head.  “I mean, he isn’t, really, but you could say that.”

“Maybe I’ll make an animal friend,” Sara said hopefully, kicking a rock into the river.

“Excuse you,” said Phoebe.

“Oh.  No, I just meant.”  Sara cleared her throat awkwardly.  “I don’t suppose you’d want to sit on my head every day in class, sort of thing.”

“Well, no.”  

“I’m _thinking,”_ Greg groaned, waving his hands.

The fall sky above was endlessly blue, with maple leaves wafting prettily like a calendar photo from Vermont, and startling her again, Greg’s frog began to sing.  After the first few words, Greg joined in.

 

“Oh, there was a little girl and her name was Bo,

Went out into the woods when the moon was low,

And she met an old bear who was hungry for a snack,

And her folks are still a-waiting for Boudica to come back.

 

For the girl became the teacher of this kind and gentle creature

Who can play upon the fiddle in a very skillful way.

And they'll never, ever sever, and they'll travel on forever,

Boudica and the fiddle and the old black bear.”*

 

 With a long flourish from Phoebe, the song drew to an end, and Sara stretched happily.  “Thank you, that was nice,” she told the frog.

“I’ll work on my tongue twister later,” Greg nodded.

Their feet scrunched pleasingly through the layer of orange, red, and yellow, and Sara kicked a flurry of them up to frown at the road underneath.  “...are there cars here? This dirt road’s flatter in the middle.” Occasionally a wind would swoop through, looping the leaves into whorls and clouds like migrating swallows, and sending the skin up her legs into goosebumps.

“Maybe,” Greg threw more leaves in the air.  “We should bring these. For _cover .”_

“Go for it,” she said absently, frowning up at Phoebe, who was flitting a few meters ahead, then behind, flickering around them like a watchful Golden Snitch.  

“What are you eating?” Greg asked her, and she ruffled up, landing on his hand and spinning around.  

“Bugs,” she said airily.  “Ruby-Crowned Kinglets can nearly hover, you know.  I’ve caught seventeen gnats in the last half hour.”

“That doesn’t sound good at all,” Greg wrinkled his nose.

“Thanks, though, we sure don’t want ‘em,” Sara batted at one in midair.  “Here’s one, if you want it.”

Phoebe got it.  “Kinglets are fascinating,” she sang, a loud, high, excited chatter, before flitting and returning with some of a mosquito.  “You know I weigh about the same as a _quarter.”_

“That’s _really_ _small_ ,” Greg squinted at her doubtfully.

“Or your eyeball,” Phoebe swallowed the mosquito whole.  

“Wow.  What if it bites _inside you,”_ Greg suggested,

“Wait, you use money?   _American_ money?” She groaned as Phoebe’s reply was to go off on a ji-ji-jiiit song.  Sara--who hadn’t had breakfast--was beginning to ponder the ethics of surreptitiously eating the half granola bar from her bag, without offering any to a small child first.  From Wirt’s complaints, it seemed likely Greg had an entire garden of potatoes, a candy store, or a cooked turkey stuffed in his pants, or maybe he’d eat the frog?  She was opening her mouth to ask, suddenly concerned, when a hulking shape sprang into the road before them.  “Hello, children,” it said, its words slurring around tusks. It balanced on claws instead of feet, and its eyes glowed yellow even in the clear afternoon sun.

“Good heavens,” said Phoebe.

“Fear not, for I am a man of god, cursed by she who hates righteousness.”

“Oh, did you meet Adelaide?”  Greg put in, and the man paused.

“...yeeeesss?”

Sara raised her eyebrows.  “We’re looking for our friend.  Did a boy and a horse come this way?”

“Oh,” he jerked a thumb over one shoulder.  “They forged onward.”

“We need to keep going, then,” she nodded.

“I’ll help you, if you do me a favour,” his slit of a smile widened.

“It seems a bit fun, being a huge goblin,” Phoebe put in.

“It’s inconvenient,” he growled at her, and Greg growled back.  

“I’m Phoebe,” Phoebe said, and the cursed man of god bowed.  It looked a bit patronizing.

“I’m Greg,” Greg announced, not to be forgotten, “and this is Hortense, my frog.”  He held the frog up and did a spin. Hortense bowed.

“I...was once a revered and venerable priest,” the man sighed.  “Father Deckenbrode.”

“How can you help us, and what do you need?” Sara resisted a similar sigh, putting her hands on her hips.

“I know where they’re going,” he grabbed her hand, clasping it.  His long canine teeth were...not white at all. “It’s a winding and treacherous path.  I fear for your safety.”

“Not enough to help us for free,” Phoebe commented, and Sara nodded warily.  

“What do you need from us?”

“The witch that cursed me keeps her spellbook in her hut.  I need it to change back.”

“A _witch’s spellbook,”_ Sara whispered in unintentional unison with Greg, eyes widening.

“If _you_ open it, it’ll curse you too,” he snorted, sounding more like a jowly dog than a human.  “Into the demons her wickedness prefers.”

“Into a troll?” Greg’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Why can’t _you_ steal it?” Sara waved at him.  “You’ve got muscles everywhere!”

“She likes children,” he leaned in to whisper, glancing at Greg apologetically.  Sara clenched her teeth against a shudder. “You may want to go alone.”

“Phoebe,” she smiled over.  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Phoebe followed her behind a bush.  “Why are we hiding?”

“Do you know this--Deckenbrode?” Sara waved in the direction of the greenish scalp visible over the bush.  

“Hrm,” Phoebe turned to look over, flicking her tail.

Sara took a deep breath.  “The witch then. Do you know anything about the witch?”

“...I have...not met any witch, except Adelaide,” Phoebe cocked her head, climbing nervously up the branch.

“We killed Adelaide,” Greg said three inches away, and Sara jolted, steadying herself against the ground.  “How come you aren’t a bluebird, if you met--”

“Holy--did you say you _killed_ her?” Sara wheezed through her hand.

“We opened the windows, and she melted,” Greg began to dramatize a melting witch, heavily influenced by the Wizard of Oz, and Sara shushed him fiercely.

“If he met Adelaide, he wouldn’t be a goblin,” Phoebe put in.  “She had either an extremely limited imagination, or complete lack of talent.”

“She turned everyone into bluebirds,” Greg explained, patting Sara’s shoulder.  “Except us. And Phoebe.”

“Yes,” said Phoebe, shifting.  “I am a kinglet.”

“So...he lied, then?” she rubbed her face, sighing, then stood up and brushed herself off.  “Or he didn’t get her name. If somebody was changing me into a goblin, I probably wouldn’t introduce myself.”

Greg stood up, placing his hands around his mouth to trumpet effectively.  “Did you really meet Adelaide?”

“...the witch you mentioned?”  Deckenbrode sighed heavily. “Are not all witches the same, young one?”

“Well, yours makes trolls,” Greg pointed out.   _“Ours_ made bluebirds. _My_ school should teach that instead of fractions,” he said aside to Phoebe, who nodded sympathetically.

“What _else_ does she do,” Sara held a hand up to stop him.  “Is this a gingerbread house type witch, or--”

“She crossed the ocean in an eggshell, and frolicked with the witches of England, then bespelled the shell to have her home by dawn,” he intoned, shaking his head sadly, as Greg mouthed ‘frolic’.

“That’s _rad,”_ Sara whispered.  Phoebe clambered excitedly up her hair.  

“She transforms herself into a pure white deer, impervious to bullets by the will of the devil.”

“If you knew it was her, why were you _shooting_ at her?!” Sara yelped, and Phoebe cheeped indignantly.  

“She’s way better than our witch,” Greg sounded envious.

“Her medicine is too effective,” his lumpy brow drew together menacingly.  “It’s unnatural.”

“Her _medicine_ is too good?!”  Phoebe chirruped, her attempt at chastising quite musical.  “It’s beginning to sound as though she’s a good doctor, and a bit _fantastic,_ in point of fact.”

“I want to turn into a tiger,” Greg said.

“If you’re going to get mad at her for being too good a doctor, don’t go to her for medicine!” Sara yelled at him, and his ears flicked with annoyance.  

“She turned me into a goblin,” Deckenbrode folded his arms.

“On what merits we have yet to see,” Phoebe fluffed up at him, squinting fiercely.

“You were _shooting_ at her,” Sara pointed out suspiciously.

“My moral nature will not allow you further without a warning,” Deckenbrode said, dropping to sit in the road.  “The path ahead goes through the territory of La Corriveau.”

“What’s that now?” Phoebe landed on Greg’s frog, which was on Greg’s head.

Sara sat next to them, warily.  “And that’s worse than your witch?”

“With my help, you will survive.  Without it, you must turn back, leaving your friend to his fate...” he paused, obviously, Sara reflected, much better at delivering rousing speeches than her rabbi at home.  The thought of Wirt alone was discomfiting, in part because...what was she really doing? _He knows this place_ , she thought.   _He made it through fine before.  What if the best thing would be to drag Greg back to school?_ “If you try to continue on, none will know of your true fate, save I...and the Corriveau.”

“Wirt was kidnapped, though,” Greg started to stand.  “I don’t care,” and Phoebe scratched him.

“At least listen to him,” she cheeped, her voice like a warning bell.  Their tussle only derailed because Deckenbrode had a voice, Sara reflected uncharitably, like the entirely too loud and reasonable man who interrupted her evening television trying to sell her a modular couch.  

“Many years ago, a beautiful young woman married,” he began, staring intently between them with his glowing eyes.  “But she grew bored with him, and one night, she dazed him with a blow to the head--”

“Oh, my,” Phoebe leaned forward.

“--and whipped her horse into a frenzy over him, so he was trampled to death.”

“Oh my god,” Sara belatedly clamped her hands over Greg’s ears, and he elbowed her in the chest.

“The death was ruled an accident, and soon, she married again, but the heart within her was black and shallow, and in time, she cast her eyes on a handsome stranger.  She took an axe to her new husband--”

“Oh my _god,”_ Sara grabbed Greg in a muffling headlock, as Deckenbrode went on with disapproving relish, raising his voice over Greg’s yells.  

“--but this time she was caught, and hung, and her body was placed in a cage along the river road.”

“Rather _medieval,”_ Phoebe huffed.

“What the law and the local parish did not know,” Deckenbrode’s yellowing tusks stretched out his smile, “is that when she knocked on the gate to hell, the devil looked on her soul and saw something so black, so twisted, that he feared it, and he bid her leave.  ‘How am I to find my way?’ asked La Corriveau, looking around in darkness, for she thought she was to return to _living.”_  In his amusement at the story, he snorted smoke, and Sara and Greg edged away.  “‘I don’t care,’ cried the Devil, ‘Begone!’, and she leaned against the gate, and oh!  She was beautiful. Her curls gleamed in the fires of damnation, and the curve of her smile made him--”

“Children present,” Phoebe beeped at him.

“--So, so beautiful.  So when she asked for a piece of the molten fire of hell, to find her way back, the Devil _gave_ it her.  She slowly trudged her way back, back, up from Hell--” here Deckenbrode leaned in, his breath sulphurous--”only to find she was tethered to her withering body.  Every night her eyes would open, her decayed hands catching at travelers on the road, her rasp of a voice calling the names even of strangers, the path dimly lit by the molten fire she’d brought up from Hell itself. Finally, no one would pass that stretch of road--they’d pass it by miles inland, though the river route was by far the shortest.”

“I certainly don’t blame them,” Phoebe broke in.  “What on earth were they thinking, a corpse in a cage.”

Deckenbrode’s eyes grew ever brighter, in the shadow of the trees.  “Finally, they buried her, three times as deep as a righteous soul--”

“Finally,” Phoebe muttered.

“--but she arose again, wandering nightly, luring travelers with her light to their deaths in the place where the river was narrowest, and deepest, the wide waters forced sideways by the narrowness of the bridge.  She walks there still, waving her lantern, far from her gravestone marked Jacqueline La Corriveau.”

“Is she Jack O’Lantern?!” Greg asked from halfway into Sara’s lap, earning an annoyed snort from Deckenbrode.  Sara released him, breathing shakily. She was shivering, now they’d stopped walking, the chill of the ground seeping into her legs through her jeans.

“Is that all true?” she asked Phoebe, who flustered in a tiny circle on her knee.

“Hrm,” Phoebe answered, looking away.  

“And she’ll _drown_ us,” Sara tried to keep her voice steady.  

“Most assuredly.  If you don’t follow her light, she’ll wrap her rotten fingers about your neck from behind, dragging you under the still deep waters.”

“Augh!” Greg yelled, backing away.  “Wirt’s girlfriend, Phoebe, and Horatio my frog, let’s go a different way!”

Sara’s face felt like she’d turned on a heating element under the skin, but her attempt at a protest was drowned out.

“There is no other way,” Deckenbrode’s eyes were like lamps now.  “Night has fallen. Either grant me this boon, free me from the witch--or I will leave _now,_ and La Corriveau will drag you to a watery grave.”

“What,” Sara whispered, putting a hand out to stop Greg from hucking a rock at the goblin’s glowing eyes.  

“The witch’s house is straight along here,” he pushed aside some underbrush, his eyes illuminating a cobbled path.  “Do not veer off the path.”

“Veer off the path,” echoed a raspy voice on the road ahead, and Sara grabbed Greg’s frog as Greg drug her sideways and up the path, urged onward by Phoebe.  As they ran, they passed small standing lamps, ruining their night vision when they stumbled on in the dark, and lit by no bulb, wick, or candle Sara could see.  Just when the echoing whispers of their breaths seemed ready to close in, Greg pointed.

“We’re here!”

Indeed they were.  They collapsed panting, to the normal, windy sounds of the woods, in front of a charmingly-painted hut surrounded by tall pines, in a clearing lit with lamps.  The window boxes all over the hut were filled with a five-pointed leafed plant Sara was familiar with from seeing drawings all over backpacks.

“...drug dealer?” she whispered to herself, blankly.

“Hello, dearies,” came a soft voice.  “I’m Auntie Greenleaf.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The frog's song is Albert Bigelow Paine’s second version of Arkansas traveler, with the pronouns changed and "Bosephus" changed to "Boudica", because it was fun. This dude also wrote that annoying bumblebee song we all learned in school. Why didn't we learn THIS one?!
> 
> Thank you so much for finding this, anyone reading!


	3. Wirt needs to study up on folktales...and bargains.

Wirt groaned softly, watching the river shoreline blur by.  The combination of the wind of their passage, the river’s steady white noise, and the clatter of horseshoes sounded like gibberish voiced around them.  “I--I thought I heard someone laughing,” he frowned around. “Or screaming.”

The horse snorted, flicking its ears.  

“Oh!  No,” Wirt waved his hands, then grabbed his hat as it threatened to fall.  His cloak whipped behind them. “I’m not--I’m not _complaining,_ of course I’ll help--it’s just my little brother is back there somewhere and, um.”

“This is a matter of _life and death_ ,” the horse whinnied, and Wirt sighed, hugging his shoulders.

“A great choice is upon me.  Will I be forsworn? A quisling, quivering and craven?  Is it so wrong to wish to help my brother--”

“Well!  Maybe I shouldn’t have _bothered_ to help you,” the horse snorted.  “There I was, trotting along on my morning constitutional--”

“Hearing the sad cries of a human in distress--Oh no. Greg will _gleefully_ repeat every individual _word_ I said when my nail ripped…” he stared moodily at his fingers.  “--as I scooped at the frost-hardened earth with stiff, blue-tinted hands--”

“You did have that board, actually, but what were you even doing, she was a robin--I _had_ to help you, I come along and see this human who can’t figure out how big a grave to dig for a robin--”

“Well, what if she transforms back somehow?  I don’t want her popping up out of the ground like a blow-up mattress--”

The horse paused in place, and Wirt nearly broke his nose falling against its mane.  “Well, that certainly is an image I hadn’t considered.” Without the ringing of its shoes on the cobblestone road, Wirt could hear the river.  The edge they ran along was so rocky, and the river so deep and narrow, that the right side of Wirt’s face was continuously damp from white water.

“Are we there _yet?_ I mean...you did say it’d be quick, and it’s just my brother’s probably climbing all over the smartest, bravest girl in the world, and she will _hate me_ because he’s going to--he’ll get his glitter glue out and try to smack _frog-prints_ in glitter on her face or--” he took a deep breath, rubbing his brow.

“Oh, no.  But we can slow down now, we’re past…” the horse’s voice lowered to a growly whisper as it picked up speed again, “--the _ghost of the Pirate Queen_.”

“The what?!” Wirt swung around to look behind them, and nearly fell off, grabbing at the smoke of its mane.

“Oh _yes_.”

“You are the _smuggest_ talking horse I have ever met,” Wirt groaned, undeterred by a small sample size, and unable to avoid picturing Greg’s tiny coffin, probably surrounded by inexplicable frogs.  In suits, possibly, all giving him, Wirt, the stink-eye. “Eternally Greg shall haunt me, once his bowels have been consumed by a _pirate ghost_.  ‘What happened to your brother _,_ Wirt?’ ‘Oh, he got eaten by the ghost of a pirate, you know how it is, when you go off with random talking horses, like the most irresponsible--’"

“She would not eat a _child_ ,” the horse snorted.

“Oh, okay,” Wirt sighed in relief.

“Probably.”

“Probably,” Wirt yanked at the horse’s mane, trying to turn it.  “ _Probably?”_

“Probably _not_ ,” the horse huffed, prancing sideways, and shaking its head.  “But it doesn’t matter--”

“It _does_ , actually,"  Wirt yelped.  "I’m supposed to--”

“--as I am _bound_ ,” the horse picked up speed again, thundering along under gnarled grey branches, in endless mist.  There were no turn-offs, just river at one side, and sharply rising cliff on the other. Between the mist and the river spray, Wirt’s cape soon clung to his back, though the horse’s mane and tail whipped equally in an unseen wind whether they galloped or stood perfectly still.

“Bound,” Wirt repeated, trying to look over his shoulder, and nearly sliding off.

“I am _prisoner_ ,” the horse neighed, and Wirt yelped, plugging his ears, “to the wicked priest who murdered my mistress, Jacqueline La Corriveau!”

“Wait, a _priest_ murdered her?!”

“He sought her treasure for himself,” the horse blew air through its nose and cheeks.  “And not to feed foals, or send for a veterinarian, or hire thumbs to fix a hole in the roof, either!  He wanted jeweled bridles, and silk in his stall instead of straw, and to impress everyone with a huge gold cross in his huge priest-barn.”

“Uh,” Wirt raised his hand, then lowered it, making a face.

“Yes?” the horse asked, swiveling its ears to listen.

“Um, is the priest also a horse?”

It whinnied.  “Ha! No, of course not, no horse could meet my lady and be unmoved!  They aren’t called barns, it was a chintz.”

“A...church?”

“That’s the one.”

“And you...promised to work for him?”

“He _conjured_ me!” the horse’s smooth gait turned to a stomach-rucking clomp, the sound of horseshoes echoing back from the cliff-face on Wirt’s left.  “He told me he _had_ her treasure, and that was why she could never rest.  If I served him faithfully, he would return the treasure, and she and I would be free.”

“...and in the meantime, she _probably_ won’t eat my brother,” Wirt crossed his arms, grimacing against the bone-jarring thumps against the horse’s back, and batting an insistent falling leaf out of his face.  

“I met her when she left piracy for love,” the horse sighed, gait easing.  Wirt groaned with relief, his whole lower torso complaining of blunt-force trauma.  “She hung her jeweled cutlass above the fireplace, and sought out a horse as wild as the sea.  I am Cheval Gauvin, and we laughed together at everyone we had killed.”

“I’d really like to get off now,” Wirt muttered, but the horse ignored him.  

“She married for love, but he wanted her treasure, and one day he tried to force her to tell him where she’d hidden it.”  

Wirt felt a whine coming up his throat.  It was getting dark, the sunset gleaming orange across the sky like a fire raged through the skeletal wood overhanging their cliffside path.  Though the river was narrow enough, probably, for a normal horse to leap--if there had been room to stand properly facing it against the cliff--he could not see the other side in the dim light.     

“She fought him off, grabbing her faithful cutlass down from where it hung over the fire, and striking him across the pate with the golden hilt.  ‘My Cheval Gauvin,’ she called to me, ‘Help me. This man does not love me, and he will kill me, melt my cutlass down, spend the gold, and sell the jewels in the nearest town, and when they say ‘You have killed this woman,’ he will say ‘It does not matter, for she was a pirate.’  Help me carry him to the river, and we will drop him over the bridge.”

“What--” Wirt’s eyes widened, and then he squinted at the pale greenish lights up ahead, the first new sight in hours of grey trees, cliffside, and river.  “...that bridge?” This first turn-off he’d seen was a low stone arch, set with lanterns of green flame, and every few seconds a whorl of river water dashed itself against its side.

“That bridge, yes,” the Cheval Gauvin confirmed, as they galloped past its eerie glow.  “I said, ‘I am here, my lady Corriveau. And I will gladly help. But,’ I said further, ‘Lay him down just here, and I will trample him.  They will remember he was an unkind man, and I am a horse, and difficult to take to trial,’ And she said ‘He was kind to me,’ and so I waited, and finally she said ‘He was not, though, not in truth,’ and I agreed, and she laid him down before her door--”

“That’s enough, I get it,” Wirt waved the subject away, forgetting the horse couldn’t see him, as he was riding it.  

“The priest who had married them was suspicious, but there was nothing he could do.  Shortly after, a new man came to town, and she befriended him, thinking he would not know of her past.  Soon enough, they were in love, and the priest married her to this new man, but he was not who he seemed!”

“Was he from the FBI?” Wirt asked, hugging himself against the chill fog.

“He was another pirate, who had followed her name to the small town where her mother was born.  He also demanded of her the treasure, with threats and brute force, and she did not have her cutlass to hand, but hewed him with the axe she was using to chop wood.  ‘My Cheval Gauvin. Let us drop him o’er the bridge, and he will drown,’ she said to me. ‘We will say he slipped, and the river is deep there--it will be long enough, before he is found.’  I said ‘Let us indeed,’ for I did not like him at all, but as we stood on the bridge, her untying him from my saddle, leaving me all over blood, he cried out, and we heard ‘Ho, there! What are you doing?’”

Despite himself, Wirt was intrigued.  “Did you run?”

The horse galloped along in silence for several minutes, its eyes shining orange in the dense shadows of evening.  “They hanged her, and the priest took her treasure, and melted down the jeweled handle of her cutlass. She wanders, now, along the shore of the river, looking for her Cheval Gauvin and her cutlass, drowning men.”

“Is that when you got your, ahem,” Wirt nodded toward the hole in the horse’s cheek, out its forehead.

“They shot me,” it whinnied, throwing its head up and back.  

“I feel like I’ve wandered into Sleepy Hollow,” Wirt rubbed his face.

“You must reclaim the cutlass,” the horse’s bright orange eyes were all he could see in the darkness.  

“I thought you said he melted it down?”

“It lives on as a cross in his churro.  Though the priest has been trying to reclaim it as personal property.”

“Church.  Wait, he’s what?  Why...he can’t just go in and take it?”

“Oh, he’s not allowed in there anymore, because he’s terrible,” the horse paused to strut in a small circle.

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Wirt said thoughtfully.  “Why can’t you just go in and--?”

“I’m a demon from hell, and also there are a lot of stairs,” the horse huffed.

“I’m supposed to go in and _steal a cross_ from a church--for a _demon_ \--in the dead of night,” Wirt moaned.  “That sounds _so_ bad, I’m so glad Sara’s Jewish.”

“I could probably kick the door in for you,” the horse started strutting again.

“No!” Wirt cried, unable to avoid imagining how much more fun Greg would be having.  Greg would _whoop_ , riding a demon horse on a voyage to plunder.  “I’ll find a way in, somehow.”

“As I helped you,” the horse slowed to a trot as it approached a massive hulk of a building, barely illuminated by a guttering lamp to either side of the enormous door.  “You will help me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wirt sighed, trying to lift one numb leg to swing over the horse, and finally just leaning forward until his face was pressed to the smoky fur of the horse in an effort to lever himself off.  Finally he swung it, slid off into a pile like an armload of firewood, and made a soft sobbing noise as his entire lower half seemed to be waking up from pins-and-needles.

“Now go rob the church,” the horse stomped its hoof, snorting.


	4. One of these narrators is not dependable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara politely chooses not to ask about the tea.

Sara cleared her throat, looking around the small clearing.  It was lit by the lanterns, and surrounded by maples in full fall glory, so the full effect was rather like she’d shrunk and walked into a pumpkin.  “Hullo,” she tried, pulling Greg close as he lifted his frog above his head like a toy airplane.

“Frog-dar, beep beep,” he frowned around.  “My frog-dar senses _nothing_ \--”

“Are you sure it’s calibrated correctly?” Phoebe’s tail brushed Sara’s nose as she flitted to land on his shoulder.

“Hello?  I don’t--” Sara clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle a scream as a whippy branch supporting a winged ant the length of her forearm flailed in front of her face.

“Ohhhh, I see,” Greg nodded.   _“Anty_ Greenleaf.” 

“Hello, children,” the ant’s antennae waved.  “It’s Auntie, though.” She was wearing a bright clean mobcap with a bright green ribbon on it, and tailored matching green leaves that looked rather like armour.

“It’s so nice to meet someone who’s dressed,” Sara sighed, and Auntie Greenleaf stood proudly on four legs.

“How charming of you to say,” she spun in place, as Phoebe gasped.

“I’m sorry, Phoebe!” Sara sighed.  “Of course I don’t mean you, but we saw _way too much_ of that goblin.”

“That I’ll allow,” Phoebe cheeped, still fluffed with offense.

“You three look exhausted!”  Auntie Greenleaf touched her foremost legs together sympathetically.  “Was that _Deckenbrode_ howling after you?”

“I like a man with no clothes on.  He can roll in the mud,” Greg said, dropping his frog to place his hands on his hips.  The frog landed on his head, bowed politely to the ant, and leapt to the ground.

“It was Deckenbrode,” Sara sighed, letting herself drop to sit on the frosty ground, in an area clear of leaves.  “He said there was some pirate ghost about to eat us.”

“Oh, well.  I shouldn’t wonder.  At least he had the good sense to warn you.”

“He told us to steal your _book of spells_ ,” Greg informed her, ignoring Phoebe’s wordless chiding and Sara’s swift elbow, and Auntie Greenleaf laughed, and the woods around them laughed with her, in what sounded like a whole auditorium of tiny voices. 

“Oh, darling, of course he did,” she laughed again.  “Would you all like to come in for some tea and honey?”

“Oh, there are a lot of you, because you’re ants,” Greg nodded.  “I don’t like tea, though.”

“Is there a...not to be rude, but if there’s an anthill behind that door, I don’t think we’ll fit,” Sara glanced around, rubbing her arms in the deepening chill of night. 

Aunty Greenleaf and her background voices laughed again.  “We have many human guests, my dears. We have accommodation.”

“Phoebe,” Sara whispered.  “If we--if I take Greg in there, will we die?  Should I grab him and run?”

Phoebe cocked her head, her bright black eyes expressionless.  “...I will advise you, this time. She considers you a guest, and while she does so still, you are safe as you can be in this world.”

“Oh.  Oh.  Okay, uh, thank you for the invitation, Auntie Greenleaf.  We’d love to come in.”  She side-eyed Phoebe, who cheeped innocently, preening, and heaved herself tiredly to her feet, stomping them to get her blood moving against her shivers.  The door swung open, apparently of its own accord, but leaping flames in a fireplace were clearly visible through it, and Greg dashed ahead, making “brrrr”ing noises like an engine.  Phoebe nestled in Sara’s hair, and Sara stepped inside to see a small room carved from the inside of a tree--she hadn’t been able to tell, she realized, with all the window boxes and vines--with dried herbs hanging from the ceiling and making it smell of late summer and hay, two small tidy beds, quilts folded over the ends, a table and chairs, a water pump, shelf after shelf of jars, and an inviting patterned rag rug in front of the fire.  Sara dropped next to Greg to warm her hands at the fire, and Greg’s frog leapt for the bowl at the base of the pump. “Oh, it’s lovely.”

“It’s nice enough,” Phoebe huffed. 

“I should hold my frog,” Greg trotted over and grabbed it.  “This is Octavius.” The frog stared into Auntie Greenleaf’s face and crawled under the teapot on Greg’s head.  Aunty Greenleaf buzzed over to push a swinging kettle over the fire, and up onto a shelf to tip the top off a jar.  From one of the cupboards, a plate edged out and began a slow crawl down the wall to the floor, where it scuttled around the floor to catch several rolls of bread.  Cookies and some apples wandered toward them across the ground. Sara tried not to stare.

“Auntie Greenleaf?” she tried, glancing behind her at the thud of the door shutting itself.  “Uh, we’re looking for--a boy, his name is Wirt?”

“My brother got kidnapped by an evil horse,” Greg put in. 

“Oh, drat that animal,” said Auntie Greenleaf, and even Phoebe stopped to stare at her. 

“Where did they go?” Greg asked, and Sara nodded, clutching at the seams of her jeans until her knuckles went white.

“Along the river into town, probably, though you can’t go out there now.  Her Ladyship Corriveau is not likely to drown you for pirates, but it’s cold and unsafe.”

“But _Wirt,”_ Sara bit her lip.  “Is he--what--will he be _okay--”_

“Probably he traded favors.  Is your Wirt good at bargaining?”

“Is the horse like Beatrice?  Wirt does whatever Beatrice says,” Greg explained, as Sara shook her head slowly. 

“Ah.  Well, it’s likely nothing worse than servitude,” Auntie Greenleaf buzzed away, leaving the two of them to flail at each other in mime. 

“I don’t believe he’s in immediate danger,” Phoebe chirruped, landing on the arm Sara was pointing at Greg.  “We’ll find him. I’m...helping you, remember?”

“Are you?”  Sara whispered back.  “You wouldn’t tell us a thing!”

“I know how it works now!”  Phoebe cheeped back, as Auntie Greenleaf whizzed by, and Sara and Greg sat at attention, glancing around warily.

“So, ah, Auntie Greenleaf,” Sara began.  “You can...transform, and you turned into a deer, and Deckenbrode shot at you, so you turned him into a goblin?”  She stretched, hoping to sound casual.

“He sounded eminently deserving,” Phoebe cheeped, and Auntie Greenleaf laughed again, along with her voices. 

“Oh, of course not, dear.  Heavens, what he must have told you!  I’m just an herbalist, like my mother, and her mother, and her mother before, who helps the fine people of the coziest town in these parts.  You’re safe now.” She dropped something into the mugs below with a ‘whisht’ noise, and Phoebe startled, clambering in a circle in Sara’s hair. 

“You didn’t go to England in an eggshell?” Sara couldn’t help asking.

“Of course not, my dear, I would never leave my family.” her mandibles worked.  “One of my daughters did. I hope she is well.”

“Oh, good heavens, to _England?_ I do hope she’s traveling with friends,” Phoebe fluttered.  “That’s a _very_ long way!  I once travelled to Papua New Guinea myself, and had some horrible adventures.”  At Auntie Greenleaf’s stillness, she flitted up closer. “Not to say. I mean. I had some marvelous adventures as well.”

“You’re very kind,” Auntie Greenleaf pushed the lid up and back over the jar again.  Her voice was echoed throughout the room. “She is a capable girl.”

“Greg, don’t keep _stepping_ places,” Sara muttered over, as he peered at the kettle.  “You’ll squish someone!”

“How’s she going to pour the kettle?” he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then punched his fist into his palm in realization.  “She’ll have to turn into a deer!”

“I will pour it _for_ her, if she likes,” Sara rolled her eyes.  “How is a _deer_ supposed to--”

“And are you well, children?” Auntie Greenleaf landed in front of them.  She was the sports car of insects, Sara reflected, nearly invisibly fast but extraordinarily loud. 

“My feet feel like I should just cut them off and start over, but I’m _warm_ now,” she tried not to stare at the slow progress of the cookies toward the plates.  Her stomach growled.

“Hrm,” said Greg.  “Can you turn me into a tiger?”

“I have just the thing,” she ignored Greg’s triumphant shout, buzzing away to bring Sara a small jar.  “Rub this into the skin, it will help.”

“Hey!” Greg pouted.  “Why does Wirt’s girlfriend get the tiger balm?!”

“I--I think it’s for feet,” Sara blinked from him to Auntie Greenleaf, who waggled her antennae.  “...right?”

“Don’t be like Adelaide, turning people into animals all willy-nilly,” Phoebe hopped down to peer at the label, and Auntie Greenleaf laughed. 

“Adelaide of the Woods and I have very little in common.”

“Yeah, for one, we aren’t all bluebirds already,” Greg pointed.  “Tigers are waaaaaaay better.”

“It will make your feet less sore,” Auntie Greenleaf patted Sara’s hand with an antennae.  “It’s made from the plants you were admiring, in the window boxes.”

“Thank you,” she felt her cheeks heat, frowning around.  “Um, it won’t--I don’t want to--”

“I don’t think you’ll get high off foot lotion,” Phoebe chirped in her ear, and the ants laughed again. 

“I’m going to write a song about my frog,” Greg said, with dignity.  “Favorite flatulent frivolous frog, how flatt’ring would be for you fanciful togs--”

“What _did_ happen with Deckenbrode?” Sara asked.  “He really did send us to steal from you.  He says you cursed him.”

“Ah, well.  We certainly have never gotten on,” Auntie Greenleaf scuttled around Sara’s knee to look at the slowly-assembling cookie plates.  “You should tend to your feet, while they’re readying.”

“I want some too,” Greg dropped in front of her, pulling off his shoes, and stuck one leg in the air to slowly pull that sock off by the toe like someone in an invisible audience was supposed to wolf whistle.

“...okay,” Sara handed him the little pot of lotion, pulling off her ballet flats. 

“Oh!  That feels nice.”  He squiggled his toes in her face.  “It’s nice, even though it won’t make me a tiger.”

After walking the whole day on shoes barely thicker than paper, she slathered the cream on her feet with a groan of relief.  Greg decided to “help”, holding the jar upside-down and squishing it down over her toes, and then suddenly there were plates of fruit, bread, cheese, and cookies in front of them, and steaming mugs of tea.  “...how,” she stared at the mug, as Phoebe scrambled down her hair to lean into her shoulder.

 _“Just eat the cookies,”_ she advised, nearly round with startled fluff.  “Just--just don’t ask. Just eat them.”

“...riiight,” Sara popped a grape in her mouth.  “So, um, Auntie Greenleaf--” She ignored Greg, who’d become fascinated with her slimy toes. 

“It is nearly bedtime for children,” came Auntie Greenleaf’s voice, echoing with what sounded like thousands more.  “Are you well? Would you like to sleep now?”

“No!” Greg stared around.  “I haven’t eaten those grapes!”

“Uh,” Sara glanced around.  “I’m...tired, yes, but I’d like to sit and eat first…”

“You are welcome here, in our human chamber,” Auntie Greenleaf buzzed to land on her arm, patting her face.  “We have much work to do tonight. We will leave you, and the bird, and the...frog.”

Greg’s frog croaked very quietly.  It hadn’t come out of the teapot on Greg’s head all evening. 

“Thank you ever so much,” Phoebe fluffed further. 

“Enjoy our hospitality,” said Auntie Greenleaf, buzzing briefly around, and then she was gone. 

“That was a good tea party,” Greg leaned to stare at Sara through her toes, and she looked up just in time to see his tongue approaching one. 

“Greg!  Don’t, ew!”  She batted him away, industriously rubbing the extra lotion into her arches and heels. 

“Tasting things is _science_ ,” Greg said in a weirdly deep voice, bouncing on his toes. 

“Maybe we can find that book now,” Phoebe flitted around, scuttling between jars and scrabbling at drawers. 

“Ssshhhh,” Sara bit her lips.  “There could still be, like, five thousand of them in this room, and we wouldn’t know!”

“I found it!”  Greg waved a book over his head.  “Wait, no, this is a stupid book, it’s just all people’s names and secrets.”

“What,” Phoebe swooped to land next to it.  “Sara, help!  Turn this over!  Kinglets are very small!”

Sara groaned, resigned herself to getting lotion all over the rug, and crawled over.  “What is it?”

Greg made the noises one makes after tipping most of a plate of cheese and grapes into one mouth.  “NuhWAHMmumWAHm--” he swallowed. “It’s not _spells_.  Maybe the book of spells has a tiger spell.”

“I think this may be what he wanted.” Phoebe cheeped, hopping around on the pages.  “Look. ‘Abigail Alcott--thruppence.  Wishes to keep friendly glances between herself and baker a secret.  Amos Bronson--sixpence a week, father a horsethief in Quincy.  Amity Russell’, oh dear, ‘public drunkenness.’  Somebody was blackmailing half the countryside.”

“Why would an _ant_ use a great big _book--_ oh.”  Sara sighed, chewing a grape.  “Look. ‘Auntie Greenleaf--sugar pills and sham medicine.’  I thought he said her medicine worked too _well--_ ”

“She ought to have turned him into a newt,” Phoebe’s feathers stood on end with indignation, making her nearly a sphere. 

“Look!”  Greg tromped over.  “It says they’re gollywhopper eggs!  I’m going to sit on one!”

Sara and Phoebe exchanged a glance over the hairy thing.  “That was in with the _medicine,_ Greg?”

“Be quiet, Wirt’s Girlfriend, I want my egg to hatch!”  He balanced on top of it, closed his eyes, and groaned with concentration.

"...should we tell him?" Sara whispered from the side of her mouth.

“Why disappoint him?  While he sits on that coconut, I’m going to have a look around,” Phoebe peered through the jars. 

After she was done with her roll, Sara wiped both plates clean in the bowl of water, dumped it outside, and refilled it, before wandering over to Phoebe with a sigh.  “Find anything?”

“Yes, actually, look,” she dropped a little white sphere into Sara’s hand.  “He was right. It’s sugar. The whole bottom row of jars is those same candies, from what I can see.”

“...just the bottom row?” Sara grimaced.  “The others are...medicine?”

“I’m not a doctor, I’m a bird,” Phoebe said crisply, but peered into a jar.  “--but from the smell, all the others definitely have herbs and things in them.”

“Maybe it’s just...I mean, the bottom row, they’re labeled things like ‘Against Scolding,’ ‘Protection from the Evil Eye’ and ‘For Hysteria’,” Sara eyed them doubtfully.  “The ones with herbs are for headaches and...real things? It’s not _good_ to sell fake medicine, but it doesn’t sound... _wrong_ , really, those are pretty...fake diseases.  Maybe that’s why she’s so quick with the tea and blankets.”

"She is...quick, with the tea," Phoebe shuddered. 

“We should take it, and then everyone would give _us_ money!” Greg suggested, as his frog finally peeked out from under the teapot. 

“Why do you suppose _she’s_ keeping it?  Seems like the only right thing to do is burn it,” Sara narrowed her eyes at the fire.

“No!”  Phoebe yelped.  “No. If we burn it, Deckenbrode will be furious!  And we might be able to use it.”

“We should blackmail somebody!” Greg suggested brightly.

“No, Greg--” Sara glared over at him, then at Phoebe.  “What do you mean, _use_ it?” 

“Well, he wants it back, doesn’t he?”

“...we could have him escort us to Wirt,” Sara considered, closing the book.  “And then instead of giving it back, I’ll throw it in the river.” At Phoebe’s nod, she frowned again.  “But do I just...smuggle it out tomorrow, or…”

“Maybe tuck it in your backpack,” Phoebe suggested, landing on one of the quilts.  “Too bad you don’t have toothbrushes here.”

“How on earth do you know about--” Sara started, shoving the book between her math text and a pile of old assignments she needed to organize. 

“Bedtime,” Phoebe cut her off, flitting to the bedpost and tucking her head under one wing.  Sara sighed.

“I’m not going to bed until my egg hatches,” Greg said in dire tones.

“You could keep it warm _in_ bed,” Sara suggested, piling her sweatshirt with her socks and shoes.  “But I don’t really--”

“Egg, we are going to bed,” Greg announced.  “Come along, Worchester.” The frog leapt up alongside his head on the pillow, and Greg was snoring before Sara decided on the best placement for her things, in case she had to go outside and pee in the dead of night.  She sighed, sat on the edge of the other bed, and sank into it backwards, knowing only downy warmth.

She awoke to a scratchy feeling across her mouth, and sneezed.

"Sssssh!" Phoebe whispered.  "We should leave now!  If we're trying to sneak out with that great whacking book."

"Water is just clear blood," Greg sat up in bed, squinting around, his arms tight around the coconut.

"My feet feel like the pink slime they use in hot dogs," Sara groaned, but felt around for her clothes.  They crept out as the moon rose.  Greg grabbed Sara's hand, rolling his eyes as she stumbled against the low branches leading back to the road. 

“I really hope Auntie Greenleaf doesn’t get angry,” Sara sighed, hefting the book.

“She might try to pull our  _ wings  _ off,” Greg nodded, twirling the coconut in the air, failing to catch it, and nearly breaking his nose.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helpful criticism is fine, btb!


	5. A Slight Misunderstanding Unexpectedly Affects Our Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wirt needs to learn better than to accept help from fairytale creatures.

Wirt tugged at the door of the church, placing his feet so as not to make sounds against the gravel, and it didn’t budge.  

He frowned, glancing at the horse, which tossed its head, whinnying like the death knell of massive church bells.  

 _“Rob the chuuuurch,”_ reverberated through the night, and Wirt put his foot on the door, yanking frantically.

It swung open on the startled face of a nun.

“Hullo,” Wirt began, on reflex, before he realized the demon horse had flattened itself against the wall of the church, and was creeping closer.  Its nostrils huffed sparks. Wirt shoved the nun inside, yanking the door shut after them.

“How nostalgic,” she clasped her hands over her heart.  “I felt as if I heard the voice of the demon horse.”

“Nostalgic,” Wirt repeated.

“It reminded me of the love I bore my riding instructor,” she sniffled, turning to sit on the stairs.  

Wirt flailed his arms, staring upwards, then tried to climb the stairs, but she yanked him down beside her.  “Uh,” he grimaced at the mud on his feet. “I’m sorry, what?”

“She was beautiful and free,” she grabbed the apron of her habit, wailing into it, and Wirt leaned away.  After a few minutes, he decided if she hadn’t stopped in thirty seconds, he’d pat her shoulder.  Forty-five(ish) seconds later, he extended a trembling hand, eyes shut tight, but at the first brush of his fingers she shot upright again.  “She carried a cutlass everywhere, so that was--” she whipped a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blew her nose, “--exciting, to my young, pounding heart.”

“I see,” said Wirt, who didn’t, but also wasn’t sure how he wanted to go about abandoning a sobbing nun en route to ransacking her church.  “I’m in...I mean, not love, exactly, I wouldn’t call it love, we’re in middle school--” he laughed nervously, and the nun turned to smile wetly at him, taking his face in her hands.  

“So young,” she sniffled.  “I was young too, when my mother came to me, and asked whether I loved one of the rich young men of the village.  Of course I said no, I was embarrassed, and we had never spoken of love.” she clasped her hands together, her eyes shining again with tears.  “I said ‘No, Mother, I think of marriage only while riding my horse, and she choked on her tongue somehow--’”

“Uh,” Wirt frowned.

“She just kept saying ‘Your _horse,_ are you _sure,’_ and of course I told her I knew my own heart better than _she_ did--”

“What an awkward conversation,” Wirt shuddered.  “But I think--”

“She asked ‘Honey, do you mean _your_ horse, or Jacqueline’s intelligent talking horse, because that might be all right,’ and I never rode Jacqueline’s horse, of course, though I longed to ride with my arms securely around her!  So I said ‘My own sweet beast, Mother--’”

“I think--” Wirt tried to interrupt again, but she suddenly tilted to sob against his shoulder, and he felt every fiber of his being crystallize into a substance not unlike petrified wood.

“And without allowing me to detail my love, my mother was cruel, and judgemental, and she shuddered rather than entertain the idea of my love with a poor riding instructor.  She talked over my description of the exultation and freedom of riding, took a long swig of whiskey, and said ‘Honey, I think you’d best become a nun.’”

“--I feel certain there was a misunderstanding,” Wirt gasped, trying to scoot away, and she shook her head.

“No, as you see...I am now a nun.”  She sighed, lifting her apron--her tears had soaked it transparent--and flapped it gently.  “My lovely Jacqueline begged me to reconsider--we had planned to run away together that afternoon--”

“Why didn’t you?” Wirt scooted up a step, wondering whether he could steal the cross while she was distracted.

“My mother sold my horse within the hour, and said there were to be no more riding lessons,” she sighed.

“...that hardly seems _insurmountable,”_ Wirt pointed out.  “You could have walked to meet her--”

“I would have!” the nun clenched her fists.  “If she hadn’t been so--so _danged,_ sorry, impulsive and married that _pirate._  That very day!  He’d been bothering her anyway, always trying to get her to confide about her past.  The _nerve._  She said she wouldn’t let herself be lonely even though I was...inconstant.”  She took a sobbing breath, and Wirt scuttled to the other side of the stairs to escape any more tears in close proximity.  

“...so you became a nun.”

“Yes!  Her horse told me he wasn’t nice at all, dug up all her garden and most of the floor as though he was looking for China.”

“Did he,” Wirt stared at the door.

“He tried to steal her cutlass!  And then he died, and she came looking for me.”

“Did she?” Wirt blinked, feeling like the more information he gained, the odder the entire situation became.

“But I’m a _nun_ now, you don’t--you don’t simply…” she leaned her face in her apron again and wailed, then lifted her head to frown at him again.  “And I couldn't just--just ditch everyone, the priest here was _horrible,_ he stole our money!  He stole everyone’s money!”  She leaned to whisper up at Wirt, who cringed away.   _“I think I even know where it is.”_

“I’ve been sent to rob your church by an evil horse,” Wirt blurted out, with the vague idea that at least it might change the subject.

“Haven’t you been listening?” she blinked at him, wide, shiny brown eyes blinking at him under the veil.  “Everything’s gone. All we have--” she paused, then grabbed him, her fingers going white as they dug into his upper arm.  “You’re after her cutlass? My Jacqueline’s cutlass? _Why?”_

 


	6. Our conspirators assemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moon is rising, and things are coming to a head!

The nun's fingers dug in the flesh of his forearm, and Wirt swallowed.  “Her horse says her longing for her cutlass keeps her tethered to this world.” 

“She had better not be longing for that cutlass over _me,”_ she huffed, standing.  She came barely to his upper arm.  “Well, come on, then.”

“...you’re...going to help me--?”

“I’m a very helpful person,” said the nun.

 _“--rob your church,”_ Wirt finished.

“It’s her cutlass,” she shrugged, leaping up the stairs two at a time, her habit flapping.  “I didn’t know she wanted it back. She hasn’t exactly been _logical, r_ ecently, dangling people over the bridge and asking if they’re pirates.  Who’s going to say _yes_ in that circumstance?  I ask you.”

“The--the bridge into _town?”_ Wirt’s voice cracked.  “With the lanterns? _That_ bridge?”

“That bridge,” she sighed, trotting along beside him.  

“S-slow down,” he panted, trying and failing to take advantage of his longer legs, and she stopped.  

“Sorry, I forget not everyone lives in a church built up a cliff!  None of my clothes fit since becoming a nun,” she flexed. “I could fight pirates myself now!”

“Is that--a frequent--problem,” Wirt gasped.  “Thought--pirates--attacked--” as they finally crested the staircases, he dropped to sit on the carpet behind a pew.  “--ships. Ships! What.”

She sat next to him again, patting his shoulder.  “Oh dear, I hope your heart doesn’t burst!”

“Not from love, but from stairs,” he sighed.  “That would be my lot.”

“And no, not _so_ many pirates, not recently.  Not since she started drowning them.” she stood again, yanking him up by the elbow, and pulled him towards one of the aisles, curtsying as she passed into it.  She shoved his shoulder, and he did his best curtsy as well, though he was awkward, not having tried before. He muttered, trying to figure out where to put his legs, and she clapped his back.  “God won’t mind!” she said cheerily.

The church was small, but well lit by the rising moonlight pouring through the narrow windows, gleaming off the white pews and pulpit.  “Here,” said the nun, walking up to the altar and yanking the smallish cross out of it. It slid forth continuously, exposing its blade.

“The cross was her cutlass?!”

“The priest wanted to melt it down,” she snorted.  “I talked to the mayor and agreed I’d pray over it every day, that her soul might rest.  That’s when he got thrown out, actually, he admitted my darling had been fighting for her life, not creeping up behind strangers, axe in hand, all, you know, willy-nilly.”

“...willy-nilly,” Wirt repeated.  

“The priest is still out there, and will likely try to take it from you,” she rolled up her sleeves.  She looked like a tiny floating nun habit, her dark arms, face, and still-teary brown eyes vanishing into the dim light.  “I’ll escort you to the bridge.”

“I’ll have the demon horse,” Wirt held the cutlass out to one side, pinched between his fingers.  “And this.”

“I want to see her!  I miss her, even if--” she trailed off, swallowing.

“...even if what?”

“Even if I don’t know what’s going _on._ What _are_ all those pirates doing in this town,” she stomped a foot.

“...you never thought of that before?”

“She’s very distracting!  If you imagine her too long, roses bloom around her face…” she leaned against a pew, overcome, and Wirt groaned.

“That I _do_ have some experience with, but if you’re coming, come on!”

The demon horse waited outside, shaded from the rising moon by the front of the church, but outlined in its own light.  “...faithless nun,” it said.

“I’m not!  I’m bringing her her cutlass!”

“Can we get a ride to the bridge?” Wirt asked, trying to tuck the cutlass somewhere.

“...how about I get up there, and you hand it to me, so no one dies,” she suggested.

“How on earth are you going to get up here,” the horse snorted glowing smoke at her.  “Like a little gingerbread man, climbing my leg? _I will crush you until your frosting juts, shining white, in all directions.”_

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Wirt pulled her back.  “Uh. She just wants to see, um, the ghost lady.”

“My Jacqueline,” she breathed, clasping her hands.

“Jacqueline la Corriveau, my pirate queen,” it whinnied, stamping a hoof.  “You _left her story_ of your own free will.  I will slide you between the pages of one of your own novels and _crush you inside.”_

“No, please,” she took a deep breath.  “I was not...sure. She spoke only of adventure, not romance.  My mother convinced me my love would ne’er be returned. ...I have to say, though, when was she a pirate queen?  She was my age!”

“She was very accomplished,” the horse blew its lips out.

“Her heart cannot have fractured like mine, truly smashed, like the cookie you describe,” she sniffled.  “She married that man before I’d even taken my initiate vows!”

“That was…” the horse harrumphed.  “--something else. She wore out my ears on your ‘sweetness’.  She read your _poems_ to me, tell me _that alone_ doesn’t justify my hoof through your ribcage--” but the nun had burst into tears.  

“She read them,” she sobbed.  “She would never say--” she turned and buried her face in Wirt’s chest, and he held the cutlass as far from his body as possible.

“Help,” he wheezed, and the horse sidled over, its hooves crunching in the gravel, to whuff at her head in the habit.

“...I can take you as far as the bridge.  I am strong, under the full moon, and it nearly the witching hour.”

She spun to throw her arms around its upper leg, wailing.  

“...I think she’s saying thank you,” Wirt brushed off his shirt, shoulders up around his ears.

“I am adept at understanding human screaming,” the horse reassured him, unreassuringly, but nosed at her head before kneeling with its front legs and shoving her onboard with its head.  

“...you made me climb a _tree_ to get on,” Wirt pointed out, but scrambled on as the flame in its eyes and mouth blazed.  “Okay! Okay! Don’t make me drop this thing!”

“Give it here,” she snuffled.  “It’s very important.”

“My lady will be able to stab pirates, instead of drowning them,” the horse pranced along, and she patted its neck.  

“...that is true.  But not just that. I studied this hilt every day while I prayed, and I think--”

“It doesn’t even _look_ like a cross,” the horse harrumphed.

“I think it’s got a...code, of sorts, some kind of spell.”

 _“A treasure map,”_ rocks flew as the horse scrambled to stop and turn in a tight circle on the narrow river road.

“You can’t turn your body to look at us!” Wirt yelped, listening to the edge of the bank crumble a bit into the river.  “We’re on your butt!”

“Of course you are,” it stopped, sidling restlessly.  “A _map_ you say.”

“Not really a map, so much as…”

“Out with it,” the horse whinnied at her, and she sighed.

“It’s got a bit of a summoning diagram on it.  I’ve seen them before.”

“Maybe it’s for _me,”_ the horse suggested, its gait turning bouncy.

“No.”

“Maybe it’s so in loneliness, or abandonment by _fickle nuns,_ she can summon her _one true love,”_ it talked over her, swishing its tail.  Wirt ducked away from the stinging strands.  They left glowing streaks that faded into his skin.

“It’s not for you.”

“Did she have _...many_ demon friends?” Wirt was squinting straight ahead, trying not to get motion sick.

“Of course not,” said the nun.

“All who saw her, loved her,” said the horse.

“Wait,” said Wirt, trying to make out pale shapes ahead in the moonlight.

“How on earth did she end up knowing you, anyway?” the nun tugged on the horse’s mane.

“Oh, only I was a suitable steed for one such as she, who wished to ride with the wind--”

 _“Wait,”_ Wirt shouted.  “There’s an--a monster--there’s an _orc--”_

“Oh,” the horse slowed to a stop.  “It’s _you.”_

“You can’t attack me,” the moonlight glinted off every angle of the creature’s many fangs.  “I’m a priest.”

“I rather think we can,” the nun shouted, and Wirt grabbed her around the shoulders as she nearly toppled off into the river.

“The power of God compels you!” he waved at the horse, who stopped stock-still.

“Let it go!” the nun kicked both feet, but she was still suspended over the river, so Wirt clung tighter.

“She’ll tell me now,” laughed the goblin-priest.  “Now I have you. Let’s go find my treasure, shall we?”

“You killed my Jacqueline,” the nun hissed, and Wirt clung as tight as he could, trying to keep her from sliding off the side of the horse into the leaping white water of the river.

“Please stop moving,” he gritted his teeth, yelping and scrabbling for a hold as she tried to kick out.  “You’re not going to reach him!”

The priest snorted.  “Not with your short legs.”

The demon horse walked on like an animatronic, the glow of its eyes and mouth blueish-white and over-bright, and the nun bided her time.

 

“I bet Wirt’s getting the adventure with _candy_ in it,” Greg kicked a rock.

“It’s not so bad,” Phoebe ruffled her feathers.  “I certainly hope we don’t run into that priest.  You’d best hide that book well, Sara.” As if she’d predicted the future, the woods roared around them, and a phalanx of flying ants landed on the path and in the tree overhead.  This time, all of them wore the tailored leaf armour, and helmets, the edges spiky with holly spines and trimmed with shining thorns. They sparkled in the moonlight. “Children,” said Auntie Greenleaf.

“Time to jump in the river!” Greg yelled, and Sara only just caught him by the suspender.  

“I’m--ah--hello, Auntie Greenleaf,” she began.

“You have stolen from my home,” the leaves shook with hundreds of echoed voices.  “You were guests.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am--”

“We’re gonna get you your money back!” Greg proclaimed.  “Oh. And sorry about this gollywhopper egg. I just wanted to know what was in it so bad, I took it along with me, and I didn’t even think.”

Phoebe and Sara eyed the elderly dried-out coconut, but Auntie Greenleaf’s forces emerged from the woods around his feet and accepted it.

“We want to help all these people,” Sara accepted her fate, holding out the book.  “It’s not doing any good you having it. You should have at least burned it, and told them!”

“It has helped me,” she waved her antennae at them, particularly Greg.  “...very well. You may borrow the book. But I expect it returned, or...something else, of equal value.”

Sara nodded.  “We’ll do our best.”

“As for you, young one,” she turned to Greg.  “May it bring you exactly what you deserve.” She rumbled over to land on the coconut, and stayed perched there for several seconds, before they all took off into the sky.

“My very own gollywhopper,” he patted it, entranced, then yelled “Thank you very much, Auntie Greenleaf!”

“Good heavens,” Phoebe said, in Sara’s ear, and Sara sighed into her hands.

“I should be writing down all these things I’m going to have to confess to Wirt.”

“I never thought I’d be hoping for a coconut palm,” Phoebe scuttled up her ear, and Sara yelped, clenching her fists.  

While they walked--the hoofprints seemed endless, where they hadn’t been wiped out by the spray of the river--Phoebe mimicked the surrounding birds, and trilled at the ones she refused to translate.  “How rude. That’s a gannet,” she clambered across Sara’s head. “That ‘KROK’ noise. They’re related to boobies.”

Greg was telling his frog a story, but he interrupted himself to say “Whaaaat.”

“Seabirds,” she clarified, flitting to Sara’s hand on her backpack strap, and nearly doubling in size at his attention.  “Blue feet.”

“There’s--that’s not a bird,” his eyes narrowed at her.  

“Of course it is.  Boobies are ridiculous.  I’ll hear nothing against them.  As I was telling Sara, one of the collective nouns for gannets is ‘newspaper syndicate.’  A newspaper syndicate of gannets.”

“Ha!” Sara grinned.  “I read somewhere that crows gather around their dead, and people used to think it was a funeral, but _actually_ it’s them investigating for diseases and danger.  It’s _bird CSI,_ so it’s perfect they call it a murder, and gannets could come and write about it.”  Phoebe had her head cocked, and Sara felt her face heat.

“A lamentation of swans, for mourning,” she suggested, flicking her tail, and bumped Sara’s ear with her very soft head.  “Although how anyone could properly mourn with that racket, I don’t know.” Sara ducked her head, smiling.

“As _I_ was saying,” Greg put in, sighing heavily, “Fabian Frogmorton--”

He paused for a long moment, and Phoebe fluttered to catch something mid-air again, and landed back on Sara’s head.  “Good name,” she called down encouragingly.

“What’s a word for ‘stole’?”  

“Oh!  Filched,” she hopped over to the kettle on his head.

 _“Fabian Frogmorton,”_ Greg rolled his eyes, as though he hadn’t asked, _“--filched_ Freddy's frog Fats on the Friday of Fayetteville's Fabulous Frog Festival.”  He began, and the frog chirupped curiously.

“That’s a lot of ‘f’ words,” Phoebe commented, and Sara snorted.  

“Shush,” Greg batted a hand at her.  “Anyway--”

“WIRT!” Sara yelled, running towards a lumpy, dim shape on the path, topped by Wirt’s pointed cap.

“Sara?!” he shouted back.  “I--I can’t get down, I’ll drop a nun in the river!”

“Isn’t that just like Wirt,” she heard Greg say behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr as platypan, and Pillowfort as peterqpan! Come say hello!


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